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B.C.’s teachers and the provincial body that employs them are cramming in eight days of mediation this week and next week in hopes of reaching an agreement over their expired contract before the new school year starts.

In confidential correspondence the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) sent to its 43,000 members last week, obtained by Star Vancouver, the union said employers offered increases to their salary grid that exceed two per cent per year — the standard raise the provincial government has allowed in contract negotiations with public-sector workers.

In the correspondence, the union said the offer wasn’t being seriously considered because of continued “concessions” on the table regarding class sizes and composition.

Neither party would comment on the offer, saying they respected the mediator’s request for a media blackout.

The old agreement between the BCTF and the British Columbia Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) expired at the end of June, but the terms of that agreement remain in force until the parties agree to a new one.

Hiring for the 2019/2020 school year has already been done under the old agreement, so students and parents won’t be jolted by staffing changes whether the parties come to a new agreement or not. But the longer the negotiations go on — they began in January — the more likely it is that a labour disruption could occur.

Last June, before the first round of mediation took place, a teachers’ strike seemed unlikely, with the BCTF saying it was hopeful an agreement could be reached in mediation.

A mediator with the provincial Ministry of Labour has been appointed to help the parties reach an agreement over this week and next. On Tuesday morning, a representative for the BCPSEA said the employers were observing a media blackout while the mediation occurs.

Salary and workload have been the biggest issues in the collective agreement renegotiation, open for the first time since 2013. Going into the negotiations under an NDP government, the teachers had high hopes they could secure raises for the province’s 43,000 public-sector teachers, whose average wages are among the lowest in Canada.

The BCTF has repeatedly argued the relatively low wages are contributing to a teacher shortage in the province and forcing remote school districts in B.C.’s north to hire teachers without full qualifications to fill the gaps. The BCPSEA told Star Vancouver in November that challenges remain but they were cautiously optimistic that their recruitment efforts were working.

Arguably even more contentious than wages is workload, which includes factors such as class size and composition.

In a 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision, the BCTF won the right to negotiate class size and composition for its members, a right that the previous Liberal government had stripped through legislation.

But the rules surrounding class size and composition are not uniform across the province. Some school districts such as Surrey and Vancouver have stricter requirements on how many kids can be in each class, including particular requirements for kids with special needs. Other school districts, such as West Vancouver and Prince George, have no restrictions in their collective agreements regarding class size.

The employers want to come to an agreement with the BCTF on standard workload provisions across the province and give school districts the authority to manage them. But the BCTF sees the proposal as clawing back protections for those school districts that already have stricter rules.

In an interview in June, BCPSEA board chair Alan Chell said the employers want to see class sizes addressed, as long as it leaves some flexibility for school districts to make decisions. Surrey, for example, has little school space and could choose to bring in more support teachers to bring workload down, while Revelstoke may choose to add more classes, since that district has available space.

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